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Gist Zapier integrationAutomate Gist with Zapier.

The Gist Zapier integration gives you 7 triggers, 5 actions and 1 search. Every trigger is instant, so contacts, tags and campaign changes reach your Zap the moment they happen, even on the free plan. Here is what each one does and what it costs.

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Overview

What the Gist Zapier integration actually does

Gist bundles email marketing, live chat and a help desk in one tool. Zapier links it to your other apps through Zaps: small automations made of one trigger (the event that starts things) and one or more actions (what happens next). With Gist, the useful part is simple. Your contacts, their tags and their campaigns can move without anyone clicking.

Three results you can build with these operations.

A tag that starts a sequence. Someone on your support team tags a contact in a conversation. Tag Added to Contact fires, and Subscribe to a Campaign drops that person into the matching email campaign. No list export, no copy-paste.

A clean exit when someone leaves. Unsubscribed From a Campaign tells you the moment a contact drops out. Pair it with Add Tag to an Existing Contact so your segments show who left, and from which campaign.

Contacts that arrive already sorted. Create or Update Contact writes a contact from another tool into Gist, matched on the email address. If the person already exists, the record gets updated instead of duplicated.

What Zapier does not do here: it cannot read your past contacts or past events when you switch a Zap on. A Zap only sees what happens after it goes live. It also offers no way to send a message, open a chat or touch a help desk ticket through these operations. The five actions are all about contacts, tags and campaigns.

If you are weighing tools, the Gist Make integration covers the same app on Make, and the Make vs Zapier comparison sets the two side by side.

Vocabulary

Zapier vocabulary in one minute

Eight words you will see on every screen of the editor. Learn them once.

Zap
The automation you build: one trigger, then one or more actions that run every time that trigger event happens.
Trigger
The event in Gist (or another app) that starts the Zap. Once the Zap is on, Zapier waits for it.
Action
The step that does the work once the Zap has started: it writes, tags, subscribes or updates something for you.
Task
What Zapier bills: one action that completes successfully. The number on your plan is a count of those.
Polling vs instant
A polling trigger is checked on a timer by Zapier. An instant trigger is reported by the app itself, the moment the event happens.
Filter
A step that lets the Zap carry on only when the incoming data meets your condition, and stops it otherwise.
Search step
A step that looks up something already in an app, so the steps after it can reuse what it found.
Connection
Your Gist account linked to Zapier one time, then reused by every step in every Zap that talks to Gist.
Cost

What a Gist Zap really costs

Gist is not a premium app on Zapier, so it works from the free plan. The bill is counted in tasks, and only actions count.

  • TriggerFree, never counted
  • Each successful action1 task
  • Free plan100 tasks a month, two-step Zaps
  • Gist triggers7 instant, interval does not apply

The trigger costs nothing, and neither does Zapier watching for new data. Each action that succeeds counts as one task, and an action that fails is not counted. A Zap with three actions uses three times as much as a Zap with one. The free plan gives you 100 tasks a month and Zaps of two steps only: one trigger, one action. Add a filter, a search or a second action and the Zap becomes multi-step, which needs a paid plan. All seven Gist triggers are instant, so the interval grid below never slows them down.

Connect

Connect your Gist account to Zapier

  1. 01

    Open the Apps page

    In your Zapier account, go to the Apps page and click + Add connection. Type Gist in the search box of the dialog and pick it from the results that come up.

  2. 02

    Sign in to Gist

    Click Add connection. A new tab opens on Gist: sign in with the account that holds the contacts and campaigns you want to automate, not a personal test workspace.

  3. 03

    Grant access

    Grant Zapier access to the Gist account. From then on, every Gist step in every Zap you build reuses this connection, so you do this one time per account.

First Zap

Your first Gist Zap, step by step

GoalWhen a contact gets the onboarding tag, enroll them in the onboarding campaign and take them out of the general newsletter campaign.

  1. 01

    Build: pick the trigger

    Start a new Zap, choose Gist as the trigger app and Tag Added to Contact as the event, then select the Gist connection you just made and the onboarding tag.

  2. 02

    Test the trigger

    Run the test. Zapier brings back the three most recent matching items from your account, so you map fields on a real contact rather than a blank one.

  3. 03

    Add the first action

    Add Gist again, event Subscribe to a Campaign. Pick the onboarding campaign and map the contact from the trigger. Leave the reactivate option off at first.

  4. 04

    Add the second action

    Add Unsubscribe From a Campaign and pick the general newsletter campaign. With two actions the Zap is multi-step, so it needs a paid plan and uses two tasks per run.

  5. 05

    Test, then publish

    Test each step and check Gist: the contact should be in one campaign and out of the other. Then click Publish to switch the Zap on. It only reacts to tags added from now on.

Triggers

Gist triggers on Zapier

7 events start a Zap when something happens in Gist, and 7 of them are instant: the app calls Zapier straight away, whatever your plan.

1

Subscribed to a Campaign

Instant trigger

In Zapier“Triggers when a contact is subscribed to a campaign.”

Starts your Zap each time a contact joins one specific Gist campaign. You get the contact, so the next step knows exactly who just came in.

How it fires
the app tells Zapier the moment it happens, so the Zap starts right away, whatever your plan
When to use it
a webinar campaign fills up and you want each new subscriber flagged with a tag that your sales rep filters on.
Watch out
you pick one campaign per Zap, so watching three campaigns means three Zaps.
2

New Contact

Instant trigger

In Zapier“Triggers when you add a new contact.”

Fires whenever a contact is added to your Gist workspace. It is the widest net of the seven: every new person, with no condition attached.

How it fires
the app tells Zapier the moment it happens, so the Zap starts right away, whatever your plan
When to use it
every new chat visitor who leaves an email should land in a welcome campaign without a marketer touching it.
Watch out
a bulk import sends a burst of contacts at once, and Zapier may hold some back with its flood protection.
3

Tag Added to Contact

Instant trigger

In Zapier“Triggers when a specific tag gets added to a contact.”

Reacts when a chosen tag is applied to a contact. If your team uses tags to mark intent, this trigger turns a click in the inbox into a chain of follow-ups elsewhere.

How it fires
the app tells Zapier the moment it happens, so the Zap starts right away, whatever your plan
When to use it
a support agent tags a conversation as a sales lead, and the contact is pushed into a nurture campaign.
Watch out
if the same Zap adds a tag back to that contact, it can set itself off again; keep the action on a different tag.
4

Performed an Event

Instant trigger

In Zapier“Triggers when a contact performs an event.”

Goes off when a contact performs one event you track in Gist, such as a sign-up. You choose the event while setting up the step, and only that one starts the Zap.

How it fires
the app tells Zapier the moment it happens, so the Zap starts right away, whatever your plan
When to use it
a trial user completes the key setup event in your product and should leave the onboarding campaign.
Watch out
the event list comes from Gist; an event that has never been tracked there will not be offered.
5

Unsubscribed From a Campaign

Instant trigger

In Zapier“Triggers when a contact is unsubscribed from a campaign.”

Catches the moment a contact leaves a given campaign. It is a clear signal that a sequence stopped for that person.

How it fires
the app tells Zapier the moment it happens, so the Zap starts right away, whatever your plan
When to use it
you want a tag recording that a lead dropped out of the demo-request sequence before the last email.
Watch out
the campaign is a required choice, so this trigger watches one campaign at a time.
6

Tag Removed From Contact

Instant trigger

In Zapier“Triggers when a specific tag gets removed from a contact.”

The mirror of the tag trigger: the Zap runs when a specific tag comes off a contact. Useful when a tag stands for a status, because removing it means the status has ended.

How it fires
the app tells Zapier the moment it happens, so the Zap starts right away, whatever your plan
When to use it
a customer loses the trial tag when they convert, and you unsubscribe them from the trial campaign.
Watch out
a Zap that removes the same tag it listens for will loop; point the action at another tag or campaign.
7

Updated a Contact Property

Instant trigger

In Zapier“Triggered every time a specified property is updated on any contact. This will also be triggered when a contact is created with this property.”

Runs every time a property you name changes on any contact, and also when a contact is created with that property already filled in. It suits fields like plan, role or company size that drive your segments.

How it fires
the app tells Zapier the moment it happens, so the Zap starts right away, whatever your plan
When to use it
the plan property switches to paid, and the contact should get a customer tag.
Watch out
a brand-new contact created with that property already set starts the Zap too, not only a later change.
Actions

Gist actions on Zapier

Gist gives you 5 actions. For each one: what it does for you, when to reach for it, and what to watch out for.

1

Add Tag to an Existing Contact

Action

In Zapier“Apply a tag to an existing contact.”

Puts a named tag on a contact that already exists in Gist, found by email. The tag then drives your segments and any tag-based trigger.

When to use it
someone who paid elsewhere should be tagged as a customer in Gist.
Watch out
the contact must already exist; run Create or Update Contact first if you are not sure.
2

Create or Update Contact

Action

In Zapier“Creates a new Contact or updates an existing one.”

Writes a contact into Gist using the email address as the key: a new address creates a contact, a known one updates it. You can also record whether the person opted out of emails.

When to use it
leads captured in another tool should exist in Gist before any campaign runs.
Watch out
the email is required, so the Zap has to carry an address to map into it.
3

Remove Tag From Existing Contact

Action

In Zapier“Removes a tag from an existing contact.”

Takes a tag off a contact, again matched on email. It is the clean way to close a status without deleting anything else on the record.

When to use it
a lead marked as hot goes cold after a lost deal, and the hot tag should go.
Watch out
both the tag name and the contact email are required, so both have to come from the trigger or an earlier step.
4

Subscribe to a Campaign

Action

In Zapier“Subscribes a contact to a specific campaign.”

Enrolls a contact in the Gist campaign you choose, so the sequence starts for them. An option can reactivate a subscription that was previously removed.

When to use it
a new trial account should get the onboarding emails from day one.
Watch out
leave the reactivate option off unless you mean it, or people who left a campaign could be pulled back in.
5

Unsubscribe From a Campaign

Action

In Zapier“Unsubscribes a contact from a specific campaign.”

Takes one contact out of the Gist campaign you pick, so that sequence stops for them.

When to use it
a prospect books a demo, so the demo-reminder campaign has nothing left to say.
Watch out
the campaign is a required pick, so one step closes one campaign only.
Searches

The Gist search on Zapier

1 search step looks for data that already exists in Gist, so a later step can use it.

A search step does not change anything. It looks up a contact so the next steps can use what it found. In the action list, searches sit at the bottom under SEARCH.

The three settings every search exposes

  1. Successful if no search results are found?
    Left on its default, a search that finds nothing stops the Zap and skips the steps that depended on it. Switched on, the Zap carries on empty-handed.
  2. Create X if it doesn't exist yet?
    On apps that offer it, this box turns the search into a find-or-create. Gist exposes no find-or-create variant for its search.
  3. If multiple search results are found?
    Keep the first match, which is the default, stop the Zap, or pass every match on to the next steps.
When it breaks

When a Gist Zap breaks

Zapier lists no Gist-specific errors, so the traps below are the ones every Zap shares.

  • Old contacts are never picked up

    A Zap only reacts to what happens after it is published. Contacts tagged last month will not run through it; moving that backlog is a separate job.

  • A Zap that sets itself off

    If the action writes where the trigger looks, such as adding the very tag it listens for, the Zap restarts itself and burns tasks fast.

  • Bulk imports get held back

    Import a large list and New Contact sends a sudden wave. Zapier's flood protection can pause that batch instead of running it all.

  • A filter that never passes

    Filter rules are typed. A number rule on a text field, or the reverse, means the filter blocks every run without an obvious error.
Need help

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FAQ

Gist Zapier integration: FAQ

01Is the Gist Zapier integration free?
Yes, Gist is not a premium app, so it works on the free Zapier plan. That plan gives you 100 tasks a month and Zaps of two steps, meaning one trigger and one action. As soon as you add a filter, a search such as Find a Contact or a second action, the Zap becomes multi-step and needs a paid plan. You connect your Gist account once and every Zap you build reuses that connection.
02How many tasks does a Gist Zap use?
One task per action that succeeds, and nothing for the trigger. A Zap that tags a contact and then subscribes them to a campaign uses two tasks each time it runs. Watching Gist for new contacts or tags costs nothing, however often it happens. An action that fails is not counted either. A few apps and actions can take more than one task, so check your task history after the first real runs before you size your plan.
03Does the Gist Zapier integration work in real time?
Yes. All seven Gist triggers are instant: Gist tells Zapier as soon as the event happens, and the Zap starts right away. The polling intervals of the plans (15 minutes on Free, 2 on Professional, 1 on Team and Enterprise) do not apply to them. You can spot an instant trigger by the lightning bolt the editor shows on the Zap, which is a quick way to check before you publish anything.
04What does connecting Gist to Zapier require?
A Gist account and access to the contacts and campaigns you want the Zap to touch. In Zapier, open Apps, click + Add connection, pick Gist, then sign in to Gist in the tab that opens and grant access. Campaigns and events must already exist in Gist, because the editor can only list what the account holds. Use the account your team actually works in, not a sandbox, or the lists will come up empty.
05Why does a Gist Zap keep running on its own?
Because it probably writes back where its trigger is watching. A Zap built on Tag Added to Contact that adds the same tag, or one built on Updated a Contact Property that changes that property, sets itself off again and again. Each loop burns tasks. Point the action at a different tag, property or campaign, or add a filter that stops the Zap when the data already matches. Turning the Zap off stops the loop immediately while you fix it.
06What if the Gist operation you need is not on Zapier?
Then the five actions and one search above are the full list the editor offers today, and the Zap cannot do more with Gist directly. Sending a chat message or editing a help desk ticket, for example, is not among them. Two common ways around it: chain an existing operation with a filter to get close, or look at the same app on another automation platform where the operation list differs.
07Zapier, Make or n8n for Gist?
It depends on what matters to you. Zapier gives you seven instant Gist triggers, five actions and one search, and it works on the free plan for two-step Zaps. Make also has a Gist integration with its own list of operations, and n8n is another option worth weighing on the same terms. Compare on three criteria: the operations each one exposes for Gist, how runs are billed, and who on your team will maintain the Zap or scenario.
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